Songs of Degrees, Part 13

Songs of Degrees: This is a sermon series about Psalms 120 through 134. The Songs of Degrees, or the Songs of Ascents, are meant to teach us about our upward journey toward what God wills for His church. There are 15 of these songs and there were 1,500 years between the ministry of Moses and the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. When God gave Moses the plan for the Tabernacle, it was the beginning of His plan to restore man, to rescue man. This plan, we know, was fulfilled by the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and Savior.

In Psalm 132, David described his desire to find a place of rest for God. What is God’s rest? Is God’s rest as important to us as our own is?

Scripture References (Rollover with mouse to view or click here to open Bible in a new window)

Psalm 132

1	A Song of degrees. LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions:
2	How he sware unto the LORD, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
3	Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed;
4	I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,
5	Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
6	Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.
7	We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.
8	Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
9	Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.
10	For thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.
11	The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
12	If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.
13	For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
14	This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
15	I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
16	I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.
17	There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.
18	His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish.

Psalm 132

Micah 6

8	He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 6:8

1 Peter 1

13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

1 Peter 1:13

Hebrews 3

6	But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
7	Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8	Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9	When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10	Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11	So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12	Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13	But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14	For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15	While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16	For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
17	But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18	And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
19	So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Hebrews 3:6-19

Hebrews 4

1	Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
2	For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3	For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4	For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
5	And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
6	Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
7	Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8	For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
9	There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
10	For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11	Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
12	For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
13	Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Hebrews 4:1-13

Romans 10

17	So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Romans 10:17